


Handling It

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Juris Imprudence [32]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, lawyer AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Evan Lorne, what happens when the most reliable, has-it-all-together man loses it...very publicly."Evan Lorne is not handling things well.





	Handling It

Elizabeth made it a point to leave the associates outside her purview to their own devices, leave the management of the paralegals to Lorne, the chief paralegal. She stayed in her office, she did her work, she made her clients happy, and as long as the firm stayed in the black - which it did, under Woolsey’s careful scrutiny - life was good.  
  
Life was less good when she was trying to deal with Acastus Kolya, Simon Ball, and Shen Xiaoyi all at the same time. The four of them were on a conference call together for two hours without resolving anything and had rescheduled a time for them to converse with their respective clients and try again later before Elizabeth got to step foot out of her office that day.  
  
She hung up the phone, took a few deep breaths, stood up, and stretched.  
  
Then she opened her door - onto chaos.  
  
Paralegals were darting back and forth, shuffling towers of paper and stacks of files in a dangerous dance that was headed for disaster at any moment. Zelenka, Rodney, and Sam were all crowded around one of the copiers, wielding screwdrivers and shouting at each other. Chuck, Amelia, Stackhouse, and Brown were building a pyramid of boxes against the far wall next to the kitchen.  
  
Daniel, Jack, and Richard’s offices all had their doors firmly shut. Elizabeth had always known her office was soundproof, but she hadn’t heard a single peep while her door was closed, and obviously this chaos had been going on for a while.  
  
John and Anne stood beside Lorne’s cubicle while Lorne was typing something at his computer, his phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder.  
  
Nathan the Runner approached, handed Lorne a form, and Lorne paused in his typing long enough to scoop up a pen, sign it, and give it back. Nathan smiled before he bustled away, but Lorne barely noticed.  
  
“But how did this happen?” Anne was asking.  
  
“I’m still trying to find out, ma’am,” Lorne said.  
  
“Was the error on our side or not?” John asked.  
  
“Still don’t know, sir.” Lorne typed faster, listened to something someone was saying on the phone.  
  
Elizabeth caught Mehra’s arm. “What’s going on?”  
  
“Apparently today is the deadline for a massive discovery request,” she said. “Our office never received it even though the online system says we did, so we’re all pitching in to make sure the deadline is met so the case doesn’t get dismissed.”  
  
The federal courts were no nonsense. If someone missed a deadline, case was dismissed, no muss, no fuss. Sure, a case could be re-filed, but if the sheer amount of evidence necessary to be turned in was any indication, re-filing a case this large and complicated would be difficult, and also the clients would be mightily displeased.  
  
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, and Mehra hurried on her way.  
  
There was a triumphant shout from the other side of the bullpen. Rodney raised his hands in the air in victory, only for Zelenka to shove him aside and start trying to catch the papers that came shooting out of the copier at top speed. Sam ducked and wove to get around the paper and close enough to the copier that she could attack it with her screwdriver again, get it to slow down a little so none of the paralegals suffered death by a thousand paper cuts.  
  
“Well?” John demanded.  
  
“It looks like the error was on our end,” Lorne said.  
  
Color rose in John’s cheeks. “How?”  
  
“I don’t fully understand it, sir.” Lorne nodded at something the person on the phone said. “Something to do with our firewalls and our new security system.”  
  
“Lorne -”  
  
Lorne hung up the phone, dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m not actually a robot, sir. I don’t understand how computers work the way Zelenka and McKay and Carter do. I don’t know what happened.”  
  
“It’s almost five p.m. on the East Coast,” John said.  
  
“I know that, sir. I have a courier on standby, and written confirmation from Mr. Kenmore’s paralegal that they will accept delivery of the production of documents late if the interrogatories are emailed over by the end of business today.” Lorne sucked in a deep breath. “The other paralegals are handling the production of documents.”  
  
“Have you finished the interrogatories yet?”

“No, sir, I haven’t had the chance to -”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“If you leave me alone for one damn second I can get them done!”  
  
The entire office went silent, but for the copier spitting paper at Zelenka.  
  
John lifted his chin. “ _What_ did you just say to me?”  
  
“The copier is broken,” Lorne continued. He was picking up speed and volume. “I spent half an hour trying to fix it, but then some idiot parked in Bucky’s parking spot, so I had to go make sure the guy’s car was towed without the guy trying to punch Bucky in the face -”  
  
“Barnes can take care of himself -”  
  
“And then someone almost gave McKay a glass of water with lemon in it, and then I received the security alert from our busted firewall system that I have half a dozen emails from the federal online filing system that have been backlogged for four weeks, and while I was sorting through those I noticed the discovery that is due today, and I had to pull everyone else off their current projects - including some upcoming trials - to help me and then you came over here and demanded to know what went wrong and dumped your handwritten interrogatory answers on my desk, so I’ve been on the phone with the IT department and I’ve been trying to type, and I haven’t slept for two days because Anne wanted a memo drafted and she put it on my desk at four-thirty and it took all night, and if you would give me just one second to breathe, I could actually finish something!”  
  
John, who’d been working himself up to the kind of angry he usually only got when someone was threatening Rodney’s life, deflated. He cleared his throat. “Lorne -”  
  
“Sir, I swear, if you put one more thing on my plate right now -”  
  
Nathan stepped up. “I’ll handle it.”  
  
Lorne blinked at him. John blinked at him. Anne blinked at him.  
  
“O’Neill’s orders,” Nathan said. “I’ll take over for Lorne. Go home. Take the rest of the week off.”  
  
Lorne paled, realized exactly how much he’d said. “But I -”  
  
Elizabeth stepped forward. “Jack is right. Lorne, consider the rest of the week paid vacation. I don’t want to see you anywhere near here, I don’t want you to call here, I don’t want you to email here, or text here, or send smoke signals, or have anything to do with this place until Monday. Is that understood?”  
  
“Ma’am,” Lorne started to protest.  
  
In the background, the copier stopped attacking Zelenka.  
  
Elizabeth raised her chin and said, “Bucky, escort Lorne to his car, follow him home, and take the rest of the day off to make sure he stays there.” Of all the paralegals, Bucky would be the one missed the least in all this chaos.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Lorne said meekly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he added to John, but John shook his head.  
  
“No. I’m sorry. They’re right. When was the last time you took a day off that wasn’t a sick day?”  
  
Lorne had to pause and think, and John pushed him in the direction of the door.   
  
“Go.”  
  
Bucky scooped up his jacket and keys one-handed, nudged Lorne with his shoulder, and herded him out the door.  
  
Nathan sat down at Lorne’s computer and started typing. Vega approached with a stack of files.  
  
“Where do these go?” she asked.  
  
“What are they?”  
  
“Tax statements for the past ten years.”  
  
“Brown has a box for tax statements. Give them to her.”  
  
Vega nodded and went on her way.  
  
John and Anne stared down at Nathan in surprise. Nathan said, without looking up, “Ms. Teldy, your memo should be coming off the printer right about now. Mr. Sheppard, please return to your office. I have everything under control.”  
  
Elizabeth watched John and Anne shuffle away, both looking sheepish, and then she went to knock on Jack’s door.

His office was empty, so she went over to Daniel’s office and knocked.  
  
Daniel was typing, and Jack was reading over his shoulder.  
  
“That doesn’t look right,” Jack said, pointing at something on the screen.  
  
“It’s right if you speak the appropriate dialect,” Daniel said patiently. He glanced up briefly, smiled. “Hey, Elizabeth, what’s up?”  
  
She closed the door. “Lorne just about had a meltdown just now.”  
  
Daniel and Jack both fixed her with looks.  
  
“What?” Daniel asked.  
  
Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t pretty.”  
  
“It was a long time coming,” Daniel said, and went back to typing.  
  
“I sent him home, told him to take the rest of the week off,” Elizabeth said.  
  
“It’s what I would have done,” Jack said.  
  
“I just wanted you to know that I sent Bucky with him to make sure he actually stays home and does no work,” Elizabeth said. “I know Bucky and Lorne have a pretty decent rapport, so -”  
  
Daniel nodded. “I understand. I should be fine till Monday.”  
  
Jack smiled at her. “Thanks. And - maybe call Heightmeyer, have her go check on Lorne.”  
  
Elizabeth nodded. “Of course. Have a good day.”  
  
They both bade her farewell distractedly, and she returned to her office, careful to stay out of the paths of the bustling paralegals. As she sank down at her desk, she realized that Jack hadn’t known what was going on, couldn’t have issued orders through Nathan.  
  
But Nathan had done what Jack would have done.  
  
Maybe it ran in the family?   
  
Elizabeth ought to have a talk with someone about Nathan and the liberties he was taking with the rest of the staff. In the meantime, she was worried about Lorne, so she put in a call to Heightmeyer.


End file.
